Posts Tagged ‘passive form’

The internet has been one of the biggest contributors to the media convergence phenomenon. It has allowed a vast range of media platforms such as print, video and audio to become almost instantly accessible from nearly anywhere and has completely changed the way in which we, as an audience, absorb information. And as mobile internet is becoming increasingly popular, it has allowed the convergence of anything at all to one handheld device. For example, news sites have massively changed their style of writing to allow quick fast hits of information by using short, to the point headlines followed up by a brief summary of events. This is aimed at an ‘on the go’ audience who want to quickly check for updates and learn the events occurring in the world. The internet, however, enables this to go one step further, using images and video clips to tell stories of the day. The BBC news site frequently has a ‘story in pictures’ section which uses images taken of a certain event and captions to tell the story which benefits more visually minded people and can provide a different perspective on a news story. Images are also very appropriate to hand held devices as many smart phones and tablets are designed for smooth and clear picture viewing. There is also a link allowing you to watch a live stream of the television broadcast of BBC news. This allows access to the television on your handheld device making television, which has always before been a very static and passive form of media intake free to take anywhere. It is not only the news industry which has seized the opportunities of the internet, however. Almost all radio stations are available to listen to live online and in fact many are exclusively broadcast over the internet. Youtube.com is a site that allows anyone to upload a video where anyone can view it and as a result has become one of the biggest examples of the convergence of media online there is. Almost anything at all can be accessed through a single website, from music videos, comedy sketches, feature films and people’s personal reviews of a subject and this can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection and with the rise of smartphones, this means almost anywhere. Youtube.com is the second most popular site on the internet and it is this ease of use which has made the site so successful, allowing anyone to create their own media and allow the rest of the world to see it.